Gibbons in a Landscape
In this folding screen, gibbons playfully interact with each other. In Korean paintings, gibbons were less frequently depicted than in their Chinese and Japanese counterparts. However, they became popular toward the end of the 1800s, possibly due to an influx of Chinese and Japanese decorative arts. Gibbons symbolize good fortune, but as paired with the red autumn foliage, specifically refer to professional success, such as passing the government examination and getting promoted to a higher position. The large ripe peach held by one gibbon bears another symbolic meaning: prosperity and longevity.
Colors in this work
Details
- Artist
- Unknown artist
- Date
- early 1900s
- Dimensions
- painting only: height 1.048 m, width 3.937 m
- Department
- Korean Art
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
-
Select a color to find related artworks.
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Art Genome Taxonomy
11 tags
Subject Matter
-
Animals Both · 99%
The title and museum description identify gibbons, which are clearly visible in numerous groups throughout the screen.
-
Landscapes Visual · 98%
The composition depicts a broad natural setting with wooded hills, trees, rocks, clouds, and distant terrain.
-
Movement Both · 97%
The gibbons are shown in varied active poses and playful interactions, a feature also emphasized in the museum’s description.
-
Symbolic Composition Metadata · 97%
The museum gives explicit auspicious meanings for the gibbons, red autumn foliage, and ripe peach, making symbolic composition a catalog-grounded reading of the work.
Visual Qualities
-
Earth Tones Visual · 96%
Ocher, brown, olive-green, and muted charcoal tones dominate the image, with restrained red and pale accents.
-
Dense Composition Visual · 87%
Many repeated figures, branches, trees, hills, and small landscape details create especially dense clusters in the central and right sections, contrasted with more open areas at left.
Medium and Techniques
-
Painting Metadata · 99%
The museum classifies the object as a painting and specifies ink and color on hemp.
-
Screen Format Metadata · 99%
The catalog explicitly identifies the object as a six-panel folding screen.
Time Periods
-
Modern Metadata · 84%
The work is dated to the early 1900s, with catalog date bounds of 1900–1940, placing it within the catalog’s broad modern period.
Geographic Regions
-
Asian Art Metadata · 99%
The museum classifies the work under Korean Art and identifies its place of origin as Korea; the catalog provides Asian Art as the applicable regional category.
Materials
-
Natural Fibers Metadata · 98%
Hemp is identified by the catalog as the support material and is a natural plant fiber.
Source & rights
Unknown artist. Gibbons in a Landscape. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 13,075 × 6,604 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available